Sons first tourney

[rwng]

My 14 year old shot in his first 100 target tournament yesterday. In his first tourney ever, he shot a 48. It isn't stellar but I think it was ok for a starting point. He got into a new league here and has been practicing once a week for about five weeks. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) I've had him try several guns. We sarted with a 20ga. single shot, (the only shotgun we had) then he shot a borrowed 12 ga. S/W auto, a 12ga. 1100 (borrowed), then he got an Ithica 16ga. from Grandpa. Yesterday he shot with a 20ga. 870, (again borrowed) mainly due to lack of available 16ga. shells. I know he must get used to a single gun, so he will be using this 870 for a while. I have never done this before as I'm basically a Bow hunter, so it's great that so many folks are gracious enough to give their time and share their knowledge to help these kids. 

[steve@357maximum.com]

Kudos to getting your son involved in shooting!  Shooting nearly 50% is a good start.  I agree with you that shooting the same gun (as long as the fit is good) will help in improving scores.  The most important thing is that he is shooting and having fun.
Steve

[Graybeard]

I was doing a lot of tournament skeet shooting when my oldest boy was young. I started him with an 870 20 ga with the stock shortened as he wasn't tall enough for the factory length.

I owned a skeet/trap range at the time and started him out standing on top of the trap house shooting at the targets I threw for him. We then moved to the skeet field shooting singles only and he broke 11 of 25 in his first round of practice.

When he grew enough for a full length stock I gave him a Ithaca SKB M300 semiauto 20 gauge. He used it to shoot both 20 and 12 ga matches with and he won quite a few trophies and while still a sub junior made the All State team and was sub junior state champ one year.

I recall one match we shot at that he and I took home almost all the trophies. I won high over all and three gauge championships plus my class championship in the other and he won his class in both 12 and 20 ga.

Someone took a polaroid photo of us at station 8 with all the trophies laid out in front of us. Years later that photo showed up again as the guy running the range asked me wasn't that me in the photo. I told him yes and he gave me the photo. I dunno where it is but we do still have it somewhere.

Encourage you son and get him a proper gun to shoot. I shot my first registered match with an 870 pump gun and did fairly well breaking 92 as I recall. I continued to use a pump for quite awhile and won a lot of matches with them especially my 28 gauge 870 that I often used in 28, 20 and 12 ga competition.

If he is big enough to use a full length stock get him either a semiauto or an O/U 20 gauge and he can shoot in both 12 and 20 gauge matches like my son did. Or get him a 28 and he can shoot in three gauges of the matches. I really never considered the 28 to be a disadvantage at skeet shooting and as I said used it for both 20 and 12 gauge matches for years. These days I only shoot .410 on skeet and still shoot pretty much the same scores I can with the larger guns.

[rwng]

Thanks for the replies. Yes he needs to find the "right" gun. He has been saving up for his own, so he doesn't have to borrow one. So far, he keeps going back to the 20 ga. 870. At last Wednesday's practice, his instructor brought in a 28ga. 1100, for him to use. He seemed do ok with it but said he didn't like it at all and went back to the 870. He says he is quick enough to get the doubles and he is getting pretty good at it. He was shooting ~18 / 25 that night. He makes sure I'm ready to go about 2 hours before practice, so he is still psyc'd about it.

[dougk]

Looks like he is finding the gun he likes...

Do you let him practice mounting the gun and managing his trigger pull at home?

[rwng]

Looks like he is finding the gun he likes...

Do you let him practice mounting the gun and managing his trigger pull at home?

Not to sound like an idiot but do you mean shooting at targets or just form? We do shoot a little at home, allthough I have never been "formally" instructed myself, so I just watch what he does and point out any thing obvious. He does have "practice" every Wednesday at the club with instructors.